By Jennipher Murphy, July 21, 2009
Jennipher Murphy lives in Nederland, Colorado and is a consultant and teacher whose focus is on the challenges of small businesses and non-profits. Currently she is pursuing a Master Degree of Science in Education in Online Teaching and Learning at California State University, East Bay. She is also interested in the challenges of cross-cultural organizational needs and is a Fulbright scholarship applicant for researching this subject on the continent of Africa.
Online Learning Communities
Online learning, social media and social networking are all the buzzwords on the internet these days and are quickly becoming synonymous with online communities and community development. These online learning communities (OLC) are so popular because they are constantly evolving and providing opportunities to grow outside of one’s own immediate network. Organizations such as The World Bank are setting aside a large amount of resources to try and understand and measure the dynamics behind social capital and online learning communities. Sun Microsystems has launched their own social networking tools to connect their global education communities (Open Source News, 2008). OLC’s offer exploration of ideas, opportunities to apply and practice these ideas, and the sharing of resources within the community (Khalsa, D. & Hildreth, S. 2000). Think about your work environment and all of the different communities that you come in contact with each day and how you communicate with each other. Is it phone, email, F2F meetings, community events? Community networks, once built only locally, have transcended into the global environment with the advent of the internet, reaching across boundaries of culture, race and demographics to include a variety of cultural variations and extend the learning and knowledge sharing. How does this cultural variation affect the quality of communication? This article will take a close look at the global community and its variation to discover ways to utilize global technologies, such as Twitter, to enhance your learning and social network.
Globalization and Cultural Variations
Before we find ways to utilize technology such as Twitter, we need to consider one of the most discussed cross-cultural communication aspects; the fundamental difference between individualism vs. collectivism. This distinction is critical to the effectiveness of particular applications of online communities because individualistic cultures, such as the United States and Japan, focus more on personal goals and the benefits to themselves and their immediate family (Batista, E. 2009). This can conflict with communication styles of collectivist cultures, such as Latin or Asian, because they stress collective goals and place priority on organizational and group aspirations (Gudykunst, W., Yoon, Y.C. & Nishida, T. 1987). These differences are a just a small representation of cultural variations and may affect willingness to share information, which is a big part of the function of an OLC. How do these two styles translate when your community comprises a global outreach? Individualistic cultures learn more often through written word so texting, emails and discussion boards are more appealing to them. On the other hand, people in collectivistic cultures, enjoy learning through non-verbal actions and communication. They find F2F interactions and phone calling more appealing than texting. These cultural variations and differences in communicating require individuals to acknowledge that people often have different views of identity, time, leadership, humor and introversion and extroversion attitudes (Ardichvill, A., Mauer, M., Li, W., Wentling, T. & Steudemann, R. 2005). Researchers have observed these cultural gaps in online communication and have shown that they are effecting participation (Hannon, J. & D’Netto, B. 2005). With this in mind, how can Twitter benefit communication in a cross-cultural environment?
Twitter Tool
The emergence of Twitter is rapidly changing the way we view social networking tools and may have what it takes to effectively enhance and support diversity in an OLC. Twitter is one of the fastest growing networks on the web, on an average day there are more than 225 million tweets (Rubel, G. 2009). Let’s take a look at an actual cross-cultural organization’s communication and see if Twitter might be a good social networking tool for them to utilize. MDI is an organization based out of Nashville, TN that also has offices in the countries of Romania, Bosnia, Ukraine and Africa. They connect both with MDI employees and local representatives in the areas that they serve so there are many cultural variations that come into play. Currently they are using plane travel, email, website and phone to stay connected. They strive for even further connection, interested in sharing knowledge and resources without adding a huge line to their budget. How can Twitter enhance their online community and achieve their goals?
Applying Twitter
One of the most powerful applications of technology is in its real-time ability to keep community members informed and involved. It can enable them to learn faster and keep abreast of constantly evolving knowledge. Twitter provides both the educational and professional fields the ability for real time knowledge sharing and collaboration (Rosenburg, M. 2008). Twitter does all this with no lag time involved like that of blogging and Facebook and at the same time appeals to a variety of learning styles. MDI’s efficiency would be improved when the travel lag time is removed and the utilization of real-time tweets are used to keep abreast. The Twitter hype revolves around its user friendly simplicity and transparency. When knowledge is shared with one person in the community, it can also be shared with a broad network of like-minded people, saving time and money for global classrooms and organizations. Twitter can also expand a network, by building reputations and establishing relationships with other likeminded organizations and leaders. With MDI, Twitter could help in connecting with leaders in the local communities, expanding their outreach, and allowing them to be more aware of the needs of the community through twittering. Whether in the education or professional environment, your organization might benefit from using Twitter by focusing on these few applications.
Cross-Cultural Benefits of Twittering
How does Twitter relate to the cultural aspects of communication and specifically how does it measure up as a tool for the collectivists and individualists of the world? Here lies an interesting perspective, Twitter embraces both communication styles. Twitter is all about sharing resources and interconnecting networks which reflect more of the collectivist style but at the same time it can be selective. People can deny access of potential followers as well as choose to follow desired individuals. Communication can be put out to the group or directed to individuals and can be as small a network or as broad as each person desires. It is the individuals choice and their lies the power. Twitter is also global in its very essence by being multilingual and has been used to organize and mobilize communities into action. Twitter communicates via a 140 character text message which would appeal more to the individualists but the communication via the broad community, with the ability to attach photos and other image material, could be more geared toward the collectivists. Twitterfone provides an application to add audio to some of the tweets in Twitter which could appeal to both communication styles (Arrington, M. 2008), but not all that Twitters is gold.
Not All that Twitters is Gold
There is some leg work that needs to be done to actively participate in a community. A person has to find the right people to follow or the right communities to be involved in. People need to be willing to “follow” each other and actively communicate and make connections. This may be more difficult for individualistic cultures. Other issues are that Twitter is difficult for new people to learn, the tool is much more than the 140 characters, it is the formulas for linking, the hash tags and the compressing that are difficult to learn (Nussbaum, B. 2009). Another issue is the fact that the majority of people think it is a conversation or broadcasting tool (BBC News, 2009). Twitter market’s itself as a great way to communicate with friends, family and co-workers and even their tag question, “What are you doing?” reflects this mindset. This question can mean different things in different cultures. A research study done by Harvard shows that very few people are twittering consistently (BBC News, 2009) and the majority are passive participants which would seem to make it an ineffective tool for a global online learning community. People need to actively use Twitter to communicate to begin the knowledge and resource sharing.
It looks like not only Twitter needing to decide what their focus is going to be, but also the public who will need to weigh the pros and cons when deciding to jump on the Twitter bandwagon. Globalization brings a variety of issues to the forefront in OLC’s and using Twitter could increase the speed and scope of connecting, allowing interaction and knowledge sharing to be more in-depth between OLC’s. But here is the key: every member of the community needs to learn how to use the Twitter tool effectively and each person needs to actively use it on a regular basis to make it a truly effective social networking tool. By using networks such as Mr. Tweets Service , to analyze your network and make suggestions for good people to follow and Search.Twitter.com to find people locally to connect with, you will be on your way to establishing a resourceful community. Overall, Twitter seems like a powerful networking tool for online communities wishing to connect and broaden their learning network and worth taking a second look.
References
Ardichvili, A., Maurer, M, Li, W., Wentling, T. & Stuedemann, R. (2005). Knowledge sharing through online communities of practice: The impact of cultural variations.
Arrington, M. (2008). Twitterfone releases full audio interface for twitter. TechCrunch. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/07/get-twitter/.
Batista, E. (2009). Cross-cultural communication: Individualism vs. collectivism. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from: http://www.edbatista.com/2009/06/cross-cultural-communication.html.
BBC News. (2009). Twitter hype punctured by study. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8089508.stm.
Gudykunst, W., Yoon, T.C. & Nishida, T. (1987). The influence of individualism-collectivism on perceptions of communication in in-group and out-group relationships. Communication Monographs, 54. Retrieved July 22, 2009 from: ERIC Database.
Hannon, J. & D’Netto, B. (2005). Cultural perspectives in online learning. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from: http://www.odlaa.org/events/2005conf/nonref/odlaa2005Hannon.pdf.
Khalsa, D. & Hildreth, S. (2000). Finding a place for everyone: Creating, maintaining, and evolving optimal online learning communities for students in online teaching & learning courses. Retrieved July1, 2009, from: http://www.khalsamontessorischool.com/placeforeveryone.html.
Nussbaum, B. (2009). Twitter hype? Or social media ignorance? Harvard business school blows it. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2009/06/twitter_hype_or.html.
Rosenburg, M. (2008). Technology euphoria. T&D Magazine, June 2008.
Open Source News. (2008). Sun microsystems launches social networks to connect global education communities. Retrieved July 25, 2009, from: http://java.sys-con.com/node/730330.
Rubel, G. (2009). Is twitter a valuable network tool or just for the birds? Small Firm Business. Retrieved July 22, 2009, from: http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sfb/lawArticleSFB.jsp?id=1202429145316.